-10- IT’S A SOAPY WORLD – MARIA LA DEL BARRIO

One of Mexicos most popular telenovelas, Maria la del Barrio originally aired on Canal de las Estrellas in 1995. The show’s entire 92 episodes ran in just under a year but have since aired around the world.

LIVE COMMENTARY FOR MARIA LA DEL BARRIO – EPISODE 1

This is a wild theme song. There’s got to be a solid 20 outfit changes, and one guy is just going at it on the conga drums.

Okay, so this one has no subtitles.

It starts in a slummy looking area. A woman is taking water back to her house.

Maria (Well I assume Maria) is having a dream where she’s a princess dancing with a prince. The woman with the water is her mom and wakes her up. Maria talks about her dream for a while.

Oh weird, it cuts to Paris where the guy from her dream is sitting with another guy in a nightclub.

When it goes back to Maria, she is praying to a little Jesus figurine for her to meet the man from her dream.

It cuts back to the nightclub where dream guy is wasted and angry. He smashes what looks like the world’s tiniest wine glass.

Wow, another show where class tension seems like a major focus. The next scene opens on a huge mansion with a family eating dinner.

Back to Maria and her mom. They are at church talking to the priest. Maria has a weird black hat on, which kind of looks like a crown. I’ll keep an eye on whether the hat is important.

OH DAMN, I think dream man showed up at the church… Nope. It’s one of the people that was eating dinner in the mansion. Maria really doesn’t like this guy. He kind of looks like a Spanish Alex Trebeck.

As Maria and her mom leave the church, her mom has a heart attack. Well, I don’t know if it’s a heart attack. But she falls to the ground.

Maybe she didn’t have a heart attack because she’s back in the church laying down and the priest is standing over her. This is so strange. Nobody is trying to help her. Nope, she’s dead.

This was definitely the most dramatic first minutes of a show I’ve ever seen.

It cuts to a crying Maria walking through a dump collecting trash.

When she gets home, the priest walks in with Spanish Alex Trebeck (SAT). I’m surprised how close Spanish is to French because I can actually understand a lot of what’s being said. They ask Maria to come live in SAT’s mansion.

I got lost for a while. When Maria goes to the mansion, she shakes the rich peoples’ world with her lack of etiquette. SAT’s wife sends Maria off with another servant to be a servant.

The next bit of the episode focuses on Maria adjusting to living in a mansion. She’s never even taken a shower with running water before. I also figured out that SAT’s name is Fernando.

Fernando refuses to let Maria be a servant and makes her eat dinner with him and his wife. Fernando’s wife hates Maria so much. It’s hilarious. I don’t think Maria’s ever used a fork.

Okay, maybe Maria is a servant… I’m not sure. She doesn’t have to wear a uniform, but she is cleaning a dog.

THE END.

Well, I guess I should mention that dream guy gets out a car at the mansion. But I still don’t know what his connection is to Maria or Fernando.